Lance of the Giants
by Spinnerweb
Summary: Juliana manipulates Cosette's guilt over slapping her to force Cosette to wait her on hand and foot. But after a week of this, Cosette has one too many chores tossed at her, a row between Juliana and Noel ensues, a special mock battle coincides and Cosette has a vicious revenge.


**A/N: This idea, I got from the "Cosette" lancer secret character in Valkyria Chronicles 2. Google 'Cosette Valkyria Chronicles 2 lancer' and click on Images if you haven't seen her already and you'll get to see how she looks.**

Cosette still felt guilty for slapping Juliana, no matter what the other students in Class G said.

"She deserved it, darling."

"Really, Cosette, she'll get over it."

"You should have slapped her once more for talking like that to my Zeriii..."

The last one was Melissa, of course, telling her that in the mess hall before disappearing around a corner again. Cosette still felt guilty though. Juliana, not quite as straightforward as she seemed, had taken her guilt as a way to make Cosette wait her on hand and foot whenever the teachers weren't around.

Now was a perfect example.

"Coalhearth!" Juliana's harsh twang ran out through the mess hall as she made her way from Class A's table to where Cosette stood. "You promised to clean my room today so I'd have more time to prepare for simulated combat today, remember?"

"Did I?" Cosette stammered, knowing full well that she had promised Juliana no such thing. "I don't think I - "

"Students of your class," Juliana said, her gloating manner coming over her at once, "cannot be expected to remember the most trivial of all things. But I am here to remember that for you. You were supposed to be in my room at this time, cleaning. Be quick, and don't leave until you're done."

"But I'm supposed to be in Class G's squad today for the mock battle against Class A. How am I - " Cosette began, but Juliana cut her off again.

"You're saying that your class should even compete. You're just target practise for Class A, nothing more," Juliana said, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

"Slap her again," Noel suggested quietly - she was sitting at the end of the Class G table and was nearest to Cosette. Pretending to be interested in her food. Everyone from Class G (except Avan, who was babbling optimistically about their chances even though no one was listening) was behaving the same way. They were all sure that a humiliating loss at Class A's hands was coming their way and such thoughts tend to take away the appetite.

Unfortunately, Juliana heard as well.

"Willoch, since you are the heiress of the Willoch Cartel and your father is on good terms with my parents, I can't say what I would normally say to the ragtag group of cadets you belong to. But I cannot allow you to speak about me in that way. I'll be confiscating your lance."

Noel's eyes widened.

"Yes," Juliana said smiling. "The one your father had specially made for you, after you convinced him that you'd make a half-decent soldier."

A shouting match took place. Most of the unmentionable words, unfortunately, came from Noel and she was getting onto a few more choice words when the Class A teacher came along. He was a small, balding man with a grim face.

"Well, such obscenities I never thought I'd hear uttered by the heiress of the Willoch Cartel. I wonder what your father would say."

Noel didn't reply, but all around from the Class G table, she felt a sympathy reaching towards her. They knew that she was sick of being known as the heiress of a fortune instead of who she was.

"Apologize to Ms. Everhart, and I feel that the punishment she proposed is really deserved. You'll have to hand over your lance for a week and use the standard issue ones."

Noel pretended to be defeated and said yes only because she was waiting for the teacher to go away so she could finish what she'd been saying to Juliana, and add in a few words for the teacher as well.

Cosette, despite her mumbled protests, ended up in Juliana's room cleaning, making Juliana's bed, and doing everything short of poking around in Juliana's underwear drawer (Joachim, Pete and Vario had offered to clean Juliana's room in hope of getting the chance for that, but were refused).

She stepped back and looked at the room she'd cleaned. Her bitterness at Juliana overcame her and she decided to mess about a little just for the sake of defying Juliana. Feeling childish, she climbed up on the bed and jumped... and jumped... and jumped... and fell.

"Ouch!"

Her hand appeared over Juliana's chest of drawers as she tried to get up. Her knee felt like it had been stamped with an iron. She grunted in pain and gasped as the drill instructor's voice came over the loudspeaker. "Attention maggots! You won't be fighting in open fields this whole war. For you to get used to urban combat, the whole school is the drill ground for an hour. Fight unfair, maggots! Be brutal!"

In her haste to get up Cosette overturned the chest of drawers and it fell on her ("OUCH! she repeated, but much louder this time) as the shooting outside started. A horrible thought came to her mind.

She didn't have any equipment at all, and she'd heard that if even practice rounds hit you and you weren't in a field suit, they _hurt_. They were bad enough with field suits on, but without a field suit... And no one was going to assume she'd been here the whole time with her knee busted and her head throbbing when they found her. They'd shoot first and ask questions later.

As if her prayers had been answered, something rolled out from behind the chest of drawers she was stuck under. With some effort she squeezed out from the chest of drawers and picked up the thing that had rolled out. "Huh?" It was Noel's lance. Juliana had kept it in her room!

_Well, of all the nerve..._ she thought. She was going to return it to Noel right this moment. It still had a practise round in it, because Noel had been practising yesterday and had intended to keep going when Avan and Aliasse had started playing soccer and she ran for cover as the ball, with the force of Aliasse's kick behind it, smashed into Avan's stomach one more time.

She opened the door when she fell back with what seemed like the force of a hurricane. Now her body hurt even more. She couldn't even unstick the five practice bullets that had latched themselved onto her. They were made so that cadets couldn't pull themselves off by themselves, or the drill instructors wouldn't be able to declare them being down. She'd have to go to the drill instructor to get them removed. From outside, the two Class A shocktroopers gave a shout of triumph.

"One of them's taking cover in here! ... In Juliana's room! Well, he or she's in for a fine mess when they come out."

Cosette had had a really bad day now, but this was the technicolor yawn that broke the camel's back. Her unbrushed hair (Juliana hadn't given her time to even get ready herself) gave her a very frightening look. But her fury put the lid on. She picked up the lance, not really having the slightest idea how to fire it but guessing well enough, aimed it at the door.

"Say hello to my little friend!" she said, her voice unnaturally high-pitched as she let fly with the lance. The practice lance wasn't fatally dangerous, but it wasn't intended to be fired at ajar doors either with someone standing right behind them. Before the surprised cadets had time to get up, Cosette stepped over them and swung the lance repeatedly as if it was the scythe of death. The two cadets couldn't do more than stir when she was done.

A third cadet appeared and shot her, but her adrenaline was too much for her to feel it and she rushed towards him unflinchingly as he shot her repeatedly and then turned to run as if she was an immune monster in a horror movie. She shoved the lance into his back, causing his body to arch forward in pain, then kicked him in the stomach. Cosette was one of the worst in the school at hand-to-hand combat, but even the drill instructor would be impressed with her by this point.

In fact, Cosette took out more than half of Class A's combatants, with basically no equipment. At the end all the spectators, including the drill instructor, were cheering her on and Juliana, a fencer, locked her in a fight to the... well, not death (at least from Juliana's end), but bitter defeat.

Juliana swung the dulled-for-practise blade right over Cosette's head with one arm (she actually had surprising strength for someone like her), but Cosette presented a truly heroic spectacle; jamming her sword by pushing against it with the lance held horizontally in both her hands. (Behind them, Pete was lying on the ground to see the underside of their skirts. Alexis kicked him to bring him back to his senses).

"Sir!" Juliana shouted desperately at Brixham. "There are practice rounds stuck on her uniform. Shouldn't she be counted as down?" - everyone except Cosette from Class G had been defeated by this point.

Brixham, the clear-headed, calm man, simply smiled and continued to cheer Cosette on most enthusiastically. For years he'd watched his class get humiliated by Class A and had to endure Class A's teacher's gloating. Now he had his revenge. Beside him, the Class A teacher was spluttering in protest.

Cosette's strength started to give and she dropped to her knees, but she continued to resist with all the valiance and gallantry of the last samurai. Juliana, obviously flustered by this point, missed her obvious chance to kick Cosette in the face, and by the time she realized this Cosette had bitten her on the knee.

She screamed in pain. "You animal!" Cosette held on with her teeth and growled ferociously. "All right!" Juliana screamed. "I give up."

"Class G wins the first ever simulated urban combat for this year!" the amused drill instructor announced. He hurriedly removed himself from the loudspeaker so that he could laugh until he cried without anyone hearing him.

Juliana ran for her room and didn't come back for the whole day. Zeri, who had been watching silently and not knowing which side to pick, looked as if he was going to run after her, but thought better of it as all of Class G swept Cosette up in their arms and chanted her name over and over again. Noel picked up her beloved lance, checked it to see if it was damaged and then joined in the celebration with gusto.

The next day, Cosette and Noel were sitting together and talking as if they were childhood friends. The Class A teacher came up to them.

"Willoch! Coalhearth!" he said. "To the faculty office."

The two of them came along happily, talking quietly behind his back and giggling every now and then.

He faced them from behind the table. He knew how to deal with students. Walk around quietly, frowningly, until they were scared. Then turn suddenly, smash your fist on the table and shout, "Well, what have you got to say for yourself!?"

So he waited, and walked, and frowned, but they didn't look frightened in the slightest. So he smashed his fist on the table early and screamed, "Well, what have you got to say for yourself!?" but he was so beside himself that a thick gob of spit landed on the front of his coat. Cosette and Noel took one look at him and fell all over the room laughing.

Friendship is a strange thing. Quite often it is born through one mind being in two bodies. And here I have told you the story of two unwise children who, although they were on good terms to begin with, became firm friends only after one of the most unlikely incidents their school had ever seen. It is never easy to become someone's friend if such incidents refuse to happen, dear friends - never easy, and that is why friendship is so valuable.

**A/N: Yes, I know this fan fiction is crazy as heck. But I wanted, after not writing anything for so long, to try another kind of parody. Let me know what you think of it.**


End file.
